Once again Madame June and her Gentlemen's Club makes an appearance. So…if you don't know what a gentleman's club/brothel is, my K plus explanation is as follows: it's a place where men go to be entertained by pretty women. And the women get paid to entertain them. Don't Google it, PLEASE.

Also, if I am going to redeem Azula , who by the way is an evil homicidal b #$ through most of the show, I am going to make her go through hell first. And uncontrolled schizophrenia, at its worst, can be a living hell. Again, we're K plus, but I am trying to paint as honest a portrait as I can of this, given my limitations.

On with the story.

After the lake incident, Azula's perception of the world normalized long enough for Dominatia to explain that they had just reached the inland Earth Kingdom. The four bison that remained were taking Azula to King Kuei and his court. They were about three to four days journey from Ba Sing Se.

After hearing that Azula had touched her forehead to Dominatia's nose and whispered her thanks. Despite being together over two years, it was one of the more tender moments they had shared. Azula knew she needed help, and she couldn't think of a better person to render her aide than the King who loved her in spite of her being a fabulous psychiatric case study. Still she wasn't sure she would have had the strength to start the journey without her bison physically forcing her.

As their travels went on Azula tried again and again to force down her medication, to no avail. Her bronchitis had lifted, but her stomach flu, while improving somewhat, refused to vanish. Her stomach turned, and constant flying didn't help her predicament. If she was lucky she could get half a cup of soup and perhaps one dose down, but it was not enough to temper her schizophrenia. Her hallucinations, both auditory and visual, raged within her diseased mind. She tried to discredit the assault on her with logic, studying her hallucinations with meticulous dedication.

Mother returned, but Azula noticed that she seemed disconnected. Ursa ranted about benign things: Azula's hair, how she should take up the violin or bake cookies with her next Friday, and various other etc. that really made no sense whatsoever. Logically Azula also knew that mother was savoring tea and crumpets with Zuzu, so this hallucination was easily ignored.

Despite her scholarly review of her condition, mother was the only appearance she could discredit completely. They were far more hallucinations than princess Ursa, far more disturbing ones. She started to see shadows flit in and out of the corner of her eyes. They crept under her bison, darting across the earth as they stalked her. At one point she swore that her own shadow disconnected from her feet and waved at her. And there were voices too, deep voices; sometimes they were muffled, at other times clear and calm. They would converse with each other, low and plotting. Sometimes they would speak directly to their tortured vessel Azula herself. Still, on other occasions the voices screamed as though reacting to something horrific, or perhaps echoing something from the past. On occasion they would laugh. Azula was convinced they were laughing at her and that the whole world was.

One voice, a male one, seemed to rise above the rest. He kept beckoning her to rule the world. Azula thought that he sounded very familiar, although it took her several days to place it. After some time, and to her abject horror, Azula recognized the voice. She had heard it once before. Sozin.

When the voices intensified the color would fade in and out of the world. It would be black and white one minute, then varying shades of red the next. She sometimes got the feeling that her soul was leaving her body, or perhaps even that her soul had left her body and she was a part of the insanity that was tormenting her. She was contributing to it just as much as the hallucinations and the voices.

Her body also felt strange, at times unreal, at times just uncomfortable, but it was an odd sensation of discomfort. Her skin felt thick and tingly, as though there were bugs crawling, living just below the surface. One time she swore she actually saw the porcelain epidermis shift, as though something were moving beneath her skin. She clawed at the figment, impervious to the pain she caused herself or the welt she was creating. One time she dug so much that she imagined peeling her skin away, revealing the red muscle and white bone beneath. When she looked a second later, the skin was intact, unharmed.

During one such occasion, Dominatia caught her. The bison had slapped her to the ground and proceeded to lick her on the arm. Strangely, after the weld closed up with Dominatia's help, Azula had no memory of her self-mutilation, despite the lingering evidence below her long sleeve blouse.

Flights of ideas entered her head, disturbing thoughts, thoughts of jumping off her bison, of testing her flesh to see if it would bleed, to see if she were real, if her bison were real. She doubted the veracity of everything, the air, the earth, the softness of her bison's fur. She drifted in and out of clarity, and in and out of reality.

And then, one night she had been flying on Dominatia when the most detailed hallucination she had ever seen appeared: a man riding on the back of a blue dragon. Azula thought he was dressed as a Fire Nation soldier, but it was hard to tell in the dark. She was still trying to figure out who he was when he loosed a harpoon into Rampage. She heard the bison scream, saw the blood gush out of his neck and then watched the rider dive straight down. Rampage fell quickly after him, screaming as he spiraled to his death.

Azula didn't even think. Rage consumed her. She dove headlong into the earth below, dismissing all logic and forgetting her fragile condition entirely. She honed in on the dragon rider, charging the breath of fire within her, caring not that death was only seconds away. She had him in her sights, she had clear shot, and she fired. He turned his head just as the light flashed in front of him, and then through him. Sozin.

Azula's heart stopped. The dragon rider vanished, and in his stead was the earth, hard, unforgiving and rapidly approaching.

Seconds before impact, Dominatia caught the scruff of Azula's neck and the two of them tumbled to the earth, shaken but safe.

The other bison landed a moment later, watching with perplexed gazes as Dominatia pinned a squirming Azula and grumbled in frustration. Dominatia always won their wrestling matches, always until today. Azula's hysterical state empowered the princess with inhuman strength, and Dominatia was actually struggling to contain her.

Rampage came to Domiantia's aide. He placed a paw on her back and bellowed his own soothing chortles at his psychotic Lord.

Azula looked up to see who was pinning her, and even in the dark she recognized Rampage's beautiful markings. Her eyes darted to his neck, then the length of his fur, searching for blood, a harpoon mark, any evidence of his altercation with the dragon rider.

There was none, and he was fine.

Azula, however, was not.

# # # #

Faced with Azula's escalating psychosis, the four bison made a unanimous call: No breaks till Ba Sing Se. They raided a tea leaf farm of its caffeinated goodness, and thus appropriately charged, flew for the walled city. About twenty four hours later the four bison and their ailing Lord landed in a clearing a few miles outside of Ba Sing Se. It was noon when the small herd finally touched down, exhausted.

"Why are we stopping here?" Azula complained.

Dominatia was quick to explain.

"So nice of you to put it gently, Dominatia. I look like hell indeed! I've been sick! Do you honestly think you'll look any better when you get sick?!"

The bison rolled her eyes and grumbled defensively. Lillith also chimed into the conversation, defending Dominatia's actions

"Well, of course I appreciate your honesty, ladies," Azula continued, reaching for a mirror from her bag. "It's just that…AHHH!" Azula screamed, dropping the mirror. She looked up at her bison, wide eyed and horrified. "Oh that was worse than my last hallucination! Dominatia," she sobbed, "when you're right, you're right! I'm so dirty and disgusting I don't even recognize myself! I can't let the King see me like this!"

Avarice snorted his version of 'relax, we've thought of everything' and gestured through the trees with his paw.

Rampage shoved a coin purse at Azula and also nodded approval. His toothy grin suggested that he was especially proud of himself.

Azula shrugged. "Fine, I'll have a look at this place you're so sure the King would never frequent."

Azula poked her head through the bushes. Out in the distance was a three story wooden pagoda with swaying colorgul lamps and a few elaborately dressed ladies with fans and far too much eye makeup seated in the wide porch. A few Ostrich horses were tied outside. Scores of men were going in and out the large wooden doors even though it was only noon. A sign was posted: Dancing Dragon Gentleman's Club and Hotel.

The Bison Lord backed through the bushes, slowly. She turned and looked at the bison, who were all lined up and grinning, waiting for her approval.

Azula cleared her throat. "Dominatia, you brought me to a brothel to get cleaned up?"

Dominatia snorted an affirmation.

There was a pause. Azula set her lips together, considering. "Dominatia,"she said calmly, "we'll discuss your sense of logic and irony after I am presentable. "

The bison snorted that she would wait for her in the trees and then rolled over on her back. Rampage rolled over and cuddled beside her. Lillith and her beau followed suit. Within a few minutes they were snoring, enjoying a well-deserved nap.

Taking her purse Azula snaked through the brush and walked purposefully to the club. She immediately drew the attention of the girls; they looked at her with surprise and concern as she approached.

A dark haired woman in a green and brown sequin dress with a belt-hitched whip came through the doors. She let out a low whistle as Azula approached. She once-overed the Bison Lord, taking in her tattered clothes, soiled face, and wild eyes. "You look like you've had a rough time, sweetheart. If you need a job I got a couple openings."

Azula cringed. "No I'm not poor, just crazy," and to prove it she showed June her purse. "I need some clothes, something to eat, and somewhere to get cleaned up. I assume you have all of these things?"

June focused in on the money. "Long as you pay me honey I can get you whatever you want. You want a room for the night or just long enough to feel human again?"

"The second one please."

"No problem," June turned and shouted over her shoulder. "Mila! Kila!"

A moment later two scantily clad Water Tribe girls appeared. For a second Azula thought she was hallucinating and seeing double, but realized that no, they were just identical twins.

"Don't shout, June, its sooo early!" Mila said, rubbing her eyes.

June frowned. "It's noon."

"Noon IS early!" Kila whined, "Besides we were entertaining, last night, remember?" The two of them giggled despite their hangover.

"That reminds me, you haven't ponied up my cut yet," June pointed out sourly.

Mila pouted and plopped a large wad of cash into June's gloved palm. "Now that's better," the Madame purred. "Anyway ladies I have an easy project for you. You can handle this even with a hangover." She gestured at Azula with her whip.

The disheveled Bison Lord smiled awkwardly at the Water Tribe Courtesans who gasped in unison.

"It seems our friend is having a bad day. Make her day better. Take her to a room and draw her a bath. Get her some clean clothes and something to eat. Shoot she can take a nap if she wants." June focused in on Azula "Three hours tops, honey or else you got to pay the nightly rate. Understand?"

Azula nodded as the two Water Tribe girls led her off to a standard room on one of the lower floors.

# # # # #

The room was nothing spectacular, but it was clean and smelled of sandalwood and moonpeaches. It had a queen bed with a small table and chairs, but the porcelain claw foot tub was large and spacious and secluded by an elegant mahogany screen. That was what Azula was really interested in, a bath. She looked like an absolute street person and if she sniffed hard enough she could smell herself. Her clothes had taken on an uncharacteristic stiffness.

Mila and Kila were obnoxious, but at least they were pleasant and caring morons. They were also very efficient, which Azula liked. Being waterbenders, they easily filled the tub, and when Kila complained that it was too cold Azula immediately silenced them with a dancing blue flame in the palm of her hand. "The temperature won't be a problem, ladies" she explained.

The girls then laid out a plush cotton robe and two equally plush towels for her. Kila dug in one of the cupboards for some hygiene supplies while Mila started to help Azula disrobe. "So what happened to you?" she asked.

"I'm suffering from an acute exacerbation of my paranoid schizophrenia secondary to my inability to maintain adequate levels of antipsychotic pharmacotherapy in my body," Azula explained. Yeah, by this time she had read too many of her medical charts.

The two twins stopped what they were doing and stared at her blankly. Azula had heard of such women but never really seen them, although Ty Lee had come close. It's like the last sentence had caused their brains to crash in unison. She was sure at some point she heard crickets chirping outside.

The princess sighed. "I've been puking up my crazy drugs, so now my crazy is out of control," she tried instead.

"OHHH!" Realization and a brain reboot occurred to both twins in unison. They began to chatter again.

"My cousin had that…well not quite that. It was called, Border, Barber, Begger….Oh darn it's something with a B. At any rate, she's REALLY crazy," Mila jabbered as she helped Azula disrobe "One minute she's happy…. the next she's in tears. And every once in a while she takes a knife and she…." Mila gasped, her hands over her face, a fearful look in her eyes.

Kila stopped filling up the tub and ran to Mila's side. She too cupped her hands over her mouth.

"What?!" Azula snarked, but then she followed their gaze. Three long gashes painted the length of both arms. They were red, raised and somewhat undecided as to whether or not to become infected.

Azula gasped. "I don't remember….I mean I didn't…"

The three girls stood there in silence. After sometime Kila spoke: "You should get cleaned up. Those could get ugly. We'll be by with some clothes in a half hour, dinner in an hour."

"Just don't hurt yourself, ok?" Mila added.

"I won't," Azula nodded. "Thank you," she whispered as the courtesans closed the door behind her.

# # # #

The lukewarm tub was like a breath of fresh air. She submersed herself into it fully, enjoying the cleansing it brought her. She lathered up quickly to take the reflective sheen off of the bath and fill it with bubbles. She'd had enough experience with water and hallucinations; as long as the bubbles were on the surface, it was less likely she would see anything untoward.

Alas, the voices continued. There wasn't much she could do about those. "Azula, you can't change what you are," it said over and over again. "You can't change what you are."

Azula lathered her hair and started to hum. She wasn't a first rate singer but she was hoping her off-tone melody would drown out the voice of Sozin. She'd heard him before and she didn't care to hear him again. However, she knew stopping up her ears would be a pointless exercise. Auditory hallucinations came from within, not without. She was about halfway through her hair cleansing when she heard it again "Azula you are Fire Nation; complete what I couldn't. You know you could rule the world…."

She hummed louder and got out of the tub. She dried herself with one towel and wrapped her hair in another. She took the towel off to exchange it for the robe, but when she picked it up, she found it heavy, like a sopping wet cloth. Perplexed she hoisted it off the bed, and gasped, finding its under side red and dripping with blood. Several scorpions crawled out from under the robe, scurrying across her feet. They stung her toes before climbing the walls, walls from which rivulets of blood now dripped. The whole bed was now crimson and glistening, and the tub where Azula had cleansed only moments earlier frothed a rabid garnet.

AZULA There it was again. This time, it sounded like a growl.

There were mirrors behind her. She wouldn't turn. She couldn't. Not again. It was better to stare at the blood soaked walls and bed, better to smell the acrid metallic scent of the lifeforce painting the room about her.

Rule the world Azula…

Azula shut her eyes, breathing deeply. She searched her mind for memory of a mantra, or therapy that would help her with a situation like this.

Timing and a loud knock at the door saved her instead. "Honey," she heard the harlots say, "you OK?"

Azula opened her eyes. The blood was gone, along with the nightmare. The room was just a room again: benign and inviting. Mila and Kila were smiling idiotically at the door. They stepped through holding an elaborate blue dress and accessories.

"We've got the solution for your crazy marks!" they said in unison. The door to the hallway was still open and people were walking by outside. Their voices were far too loud, but patient privacy laws didn't exist in the Earth Kingdom, and even if they had, Azula wouldn't have cared.

She had never been happier to see idiotic women in her life, and she was unusually kind and welcoming to them as a result.

The twin's solution for Azula's crazy marks was to dress like a Water Tribe coutesan, since Water Tribe people liked to wrap their forearms with soft blue leather strips, no matter what their dress. And a courtesan? Well, the girl's wardrobe was pretty much limited to the impractical but profitable.

Mila and Kila did a quick heal on her forearms which managed to make them look less angry and likely to be infected but didn't heal them completely. "Sorry,we're not very good," Kila apologized.

"Yeah, we're used to using our waterbending for…other things," Their ridiculous giggling resumed, but to make up for it they got to dressing Azula right away. They wrapped her injured arms in the soft leather traditional gauntlets and then slipped her into a stunning but revealing crush blue velvet dress. They brushed her wet matted hair and started braiding the front of it into a tight, elaborate weave. They gathered her bangs into a sleek black plait that cascaded seductively over her right eye. The back of her hair they left long and flowing. They clipped an elaborate hair piece made of blue dyed ostrich horse feathers and sparkling faux pearls and sequins into the back of her hair. They also fit Azula with a pair of faux pearl earrings and were about to give her a necklace when they stopped.

"Wow!" they gasped in unison.

Azula's hand instinctively flew to her neck. She breathed a sigh of relief when her fingers touched the gold, knowing that she hadn't lost the King's present in the midst of her insanity.

"Who are you engaged to?" Mila asked

"Yeah, like, WHO?" Kila was beside herself with excitement.

Azula smiled in spite of herself. "I don't know for certain that I'm engaged. He just…sent me this."

The twins were positively giddy. Their diarrhea of the mouth became explosive at that point. Their tongues drolled a long and extensive explanation of Northern Water Tribe engagement customs, of which Azula had heard of but was not extremely famliar. Then they began to elaborate on how engagements varied in other parts of the world. They squealed, giggled, and completed each others sentences for a full five minutes as they worked on her makeup. Finally they asked Azula "Where is he from?"

"Yeah where is he from?"

Azula's gaze darted. She was hesitant to reveal too much. "Ba Sing Se."

The twins squealed in unison. "You could totally be engaged."

"Yeah, you totally could be!" Mila exclaimed.

"Really?" Azula whispered.

"Well of course!" Mila said. "In the Earth Kingdom, engagements vary quite a bit. Some guys use rings, others use necklaces. It really depends on the guy!"

They spun her around to where the mirrors were.

Azula shut her eyes tightly, resistant.

"Look at yourself silly," Kila raved, nudging her in the shoulder.

"Its just a mirror, right?" Azula asked. Although 'just mirrors' were exactly what had given her such trouble in the past.

"Of course," Mila said,"And if it makes you crazy we'll smash it and blame it on a customer!"

Azula took a breath, then opened one eye, then another. She gasped.

The dress they selected for her was nothing that Azula would have chosen on her own, no more than she would have ever considered dressing Water Tribe. However, she looked stunning in both the color and the style! She seemed provocative and powerful at the same time, but not in a dangerous way, in a very strong and uniquely feminine way. Like the winner of a beauty pageant or the bell of a ball, or a King's favorite entertainer.

Mila and Kila saw her reaction and positively beamed. Kila leaned in to whisper "Well if you aren't engaged now, you will be when he sees you!"